Employment, non-employment and unemployment: Are government policies working for or against people with disabilities to gain successful employment?

<p>The government acknowledges that people with disabilities are disproportionately poor, that only a minority are in paid employment, and many still experience social exclusion and isolation (Burchardt 2003: p 6). Within the last decade, the government has introduced a number of strategies and policies to help people with disabilities find and retain employment. Each of these uses a different approach in an effort to reduce any barriers, the influence of stereotypical images and the difficulties that disabled people encounter when seeking employment. However people with disabilities remain largely disenfranchised, indicating that their policies have by and large failed. This would suggest that there needs to be a fundamental paradigm shift and a radical redesign in government strategies and policies to bring about improvements in lives and employment for people with disabilities. The government has implemented several key policies to initialize this transformation process from unemployment to employment for people with disabilities. This paper will critically examine these policies concerning the treatment of people with disabilities with reference to employment and the transition from non-employment or unemployment to employment. It will also consider if and how the government stance on disability with reference to employment has changed over the last ten years and whether such changes have been implemented and effective?Additionally it will examine the latest publication produced by Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit (2005) Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People, with respect to employment. In many government reports, the authors and other non-disabled scholars within government interest groups continue to draw upon methodologies which portray and enforce the ‘traditionally’ medical / rehabilitation disability models, instead of using the newer social model of people with disabilities. It will also consider a number of government labour market policy measures, targeted at disabled people, including the Access to Work Scheme, and most recently, the New Deal for Disabled People. Employment, alone will not end the social exclusion experienced by many people with disabilities; nevertheless lack of employment is one of the main routes to exclusion. When a person becomes disabled it is a major life-event, financial hardship and exclusion from participation in society can place an additional, and unnecessary, burden on people with disabilities and in turn on society as a whole. Should the government adopt the ‘social model of disability’ which would be welcome by people with disabilities, instead of the more draconian models of medical / rehabilitation views of disability?</p>